Hound hunters and out of control dogs

[DonyaQuick]

I live in upstate NY and just had someone's radio collared hounds running through my property. Initially they were chasing some poor cat I've never seen before and then caught sight of my coop and started to come down the hill towards it. Then they saw me exiting the run with steam coming out of my ears and decided to head for a neighbor's horses instead. I ran after them and got their attention before they made it to the neighbor's horses and grabbed one, which made a second one stop and hang around. I'm pretty sure there was at least one other dog too but don't know where it/they went. I yelled for anyone who was within earshot that I had a lost dog. Nothing. I waited probably a good 10 minutes for a dude to emerge out of the forest to collect the dogs, so no way were these dogs "under control" by any reasonable definition. During the time I was waiting, I snapped photos of the collar of the dog I had hold of and the name and info on it does NOT match the name and info I was told verbally talking to the guy who collected it claiming it was his dog (I didn't mention the photo I had). I made it very clear to the guy that I never want to see those dogs again and where the property bounds are. It's the second time the dogs have been on my land according to my husband who says he's seen at least one of the dogs before in the recent past. Of course the guy says surely must have been someone else's dogs. Although he was very polite the whole time, I rather expect I will be having repeat issues with this now.

I'm looking for advice on what I should be doing to deal with this, both in terms of if I documenting and reporting this and possibly future incidents, and also what else I should do to establish a temporary extra perimeter around the coop should the dogs come in closer in the future. This is my current situation, which I already realize is not grand for this kind of thing:

• Unfortunately there are only a few old "no trespassing" signs. I bought a bunch of new ones recently but it hasn't been safe to walk the perimeter with a layer of ice under snow since I got them. I will probably have to wait a few more weeks to post new signs.
• As far as dog deterrents, I have a 50lb Great Pyrenees puppy who is on track to be around 100lbs full grown, but I do not have a fenced region in which to keep her outside with the coop - and she's also not old enough to have full the guarding behavior. She alerts but is still afraid of a lot of things. Once she's full size she would easily eat the dogs I saw today for lunch, but that's going to take a while.
• I believe my coop and run are protected against dogs like I just saw, but I also don't want a bunch of dogs running up and scaring my chickens half to death even if they can't actually get in. I have no outer fence right now.

I'm wondering about putting electric poultry netting or something similar to run in a small area around the coop at least as a temporary thing, but (1) will something like that even deter dogs and (2) this may sound stupid but can electric netting or tape be set up safely with posts that are in buckets of rock/cement sitting above the ground? The ground is frozen solid, and even after it thaws it will be extremely hard to drive anything into the ground, which is more rock than dirt in most places.

 

[DobieLover]

I'm wondering about putting electric poultry netting or something similar to run in a small area around the coop at least as a temporary thing, but (1) will something like that even deter dogs and (2) this may sound stupid but can electric netting or tape be set up safely with posts that are in buckets of rock/cement sitting above the ground? The ground is frozen solid, and even after it thaws it will be extremely hard to drive anything into the ground, which is more rock than dirt in most places.

Yes.
The poles that come with the netting only penetrate the ground about 4". I don't know how long you can wait but we are coming up into some warmer weather that should allow the top few inches of soil to thaw enough to set the poles.
My neighbors have two ROTTEN GSDs. One of them killed one of my birds 3 years ago. I put up the netting to enclose 1/3 acre pen for the flock and power the net with a 10,000 volt charger.. I've kept all ground predators away from the flock.
Satisfyingly, I was talking to the owner of the GSDs and was told that the one that killed my bird peed on the netting and got a mighty jolt to his man parts. Karma baby. Karma.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Yes.
The poles that come with the netting only penetrate the ground about 4". I don't know how long you can wait but the we are coming up into some warmer weather that should allow the top few inches of soil to thaw enough to set the poles.
My neighbors have two ROTTEN GSDs. One of them killed one of my birds 3 years ago. I put up the netting to enclose 1/3 acre pen for the flock and power the net with a 10,000 volt charger.. I've kept all ground predators away from the flock.
Satisfyingly, I was talking to the owner of the GSDs and was told that the one that killed my bird peed on the netting and got a mighty jolt to his man parts. Karma baby. Karma.

That is good news about the effectiveness with dogs and pole depth - thanks! I somehow thought they'd have to be driven in a lot deeper than that. 4" should be doable for me with some elbow grease. I'd like to get some perimeter up within days to a couple weeks. Between now and then I can ensure either I or my husband are home to respond to any ruckus, and our dog is serving as an excellent alarm system for anything like that even from within the house. Assuming I can get the actual netting (in truth I haven't looked at local stock for it yet and shelves are increasingly empty for a lot of things), maybe I can get something installed just after the 50F rain I saw that's supposed to be coming this weekend or thereabouts. The last bunch of good rain that came through and melted the snow left the ground softer than normal for a very brief time, so maybe I'll get lucky with that.

 

[McChooky]

A charger that carries 9000-10,000 volts will do all the talking for you.They won't come back.

 

[Bigtom Turkey]

Yes.
The poles that come with the netting only penetrate the ground about 4". I don't know how long you can wait but the we are coming up into some warmer weather that should allow the top few inches of soil to thaw enough to set the poles.
My neighbors have two ROTTEN GSDs. One of them killed one of my birds 3 years ago. I put up the netting to enclose 1/3 acre pen for the flock and power the net with a 10,000 volt charger.. I've kept all ground predators away from the flock.
Satisfyingly, I was talking to the owner of the GSDs and was told that the one that killed my bird peed on the netting and got a mighty jolt to his man parts. Karma baby. Karma.

I learned not to pee on the electric fence when I was 8. Experience is the best teacher.

 

[McChooky]

I heard about some workers who put juice on their mine office to stop a guy who kept peeing on it. None of them ever fessed up.

 

[mowin]

Where in upstate NY are you? Around my area the Beagling clubs( fancy garbed people on horseback) run hounds that they claim only run fox. These dogs will run anything with 4 legs, and these people don't care about boundaries.

 

[McChooky]

Recently when some hounds and hunters kept trespassing upon his land a well-known youtuber posted a couple videos about it hoping to bring about change. My advise is put up an electric fence to keep the dogs off your land so the hunters won't have a reason to come there.

 

[DonyaQuick]

Where in upstate NY are you? Around my area the Beagling clubs( fancy garbed people on horseback) run hounds that they claim only run fox. These dogs will run anything with 4 legs, and these people don't care about boundaries.

I'm in Otego (Otsego county). Lots of folks with horses but no horseback fox hunting that I've seen. This may sound weird but I would actually prefer horseback fox hunters even though the dogs are basically the same out of control mess. The horse hunters don't try to hide like cowards and also don't usually carry guns with them. These dudes really didn't want me to know who they were and were very reluctant to show their face and speak to me to get their dog back. My husband also found tracks from that that show they've been hiding out of sight at least twice before when he goes to walk our dog. Trying to hide from us on our own land is pretty low.

Recently when some hounds and hunters kept trespassing upon his land a well-known youtuber posted a couple videos about it hoping to bring about change. My advise is put up an electric fence to keep the dogs off your land so the hunters won't have a reason to come there.

I know the one you mean; followed the development of that mess as the videos were coming out and that actually made me read up on the topic more broadly, so I knew exactly what I was running into when I saw those radio collars. Unfortunately I can only reasonably fence off the cleared part of the land. Over 20 acres of mostly forest is too much though. They could just take things down on the further out parts of the land and I wouldn't notice right away.

In 6 months anyway their dogs will also get to contend with my dog, and she's already heavier than their adult dogs were. When the hunters tried to tell me they were doing a good deed by hunting coyotes I cut them off saying my great pyrenees keeps them away just fine. Going by facial expressions, the breed name drop seemed to have the strongest impact out of anything I said to them.

 

[samanthaoverton]

I'd say a gun if you lived down south ever heard of a conabear trap?